Brooklyn teen identified as mother of dead baby found in airplane toilet; could have suffered a 'botched abortion'

By Thomas Tracy

|new york daily news|

Aug 08, 2018 | 10:00 AM

Port Authority police say an 18-year-old Brooklyn resident is the mother of the premature baby found dead in an airplane toilet on Tuesday.

An 18-year-old Brooklyn woman has been identified as the mother of the premature newborn found dead inside an airplane toilet at LaGuardia Airport. She was returning with her sister from a trip to Jamaica and could have been the victim of a “botched abortion” in the Caribbean, officials said Wednesday.

The teen, who checked into Kings County Hospital after she got off the plane, claimed she never knew she was pregnant when she rushed into the bathroom of an American Airlines plane after it landed at the Queens airport about 10:45 p.m. Monday.

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“She pulled the baby out and put it in the toilet and covered it with paper,” a law enforcement source said.

The woman told investigators she hadn’t been feeling well for days but showed little emotion, the source said.

“It was like talking to a stone wall,” the source said.

Doctors who examined the young woman at Kings County Hospital told investigators it was possible the baby’s death could be the result of a “botched abortion,” the source said.

The teen told police she had visited a doctor in the Caribbean nation before flying back to the U.S., but it was unclear whether police asked if she’d gone for an abortion.

A cleaning crew for Airway Cleaners found the baby’s body in a middle bathroom of the plane, which was parked outside an American Airlines airplane hangar about 6 a.m. Tuesday. The baby appeared to have been born three months premature.

No charges have been filed against the teen as investigators await the results of an autopsy, which will show if the baby was born alive or dead.

Sources said the teen, her sister and other relatives had flown from Jamaica to Charlotte, N.C., to make a connecting flight to New York.

Members of the flight crew noticed that the teen was not feeling well and that she had rushed to the bathroom as most of the passengers were disembarking.

After the baby was found, the flight crew told investigators about the sick passenger, who was identified by her seating assignment.

Port Authority detectives located her at Kings County Hospital late Tuesday afternoon.

The investigation remains open until the autopsy is concluded, officials said.